


Though This Be Madness

by Oyyo



Category: Steven Universe (Cartoon)
Genre: Amethyst has one line of dialogue, Gen, If You Squint A Lot, Keeping it Together, Pearlnet, angst with some relief at the end, prose, what the hell else do I tag this as
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-06
Updated: 2015-07-06
Packaged: 2018-04-07 23:31:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,252
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4282128
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Oyyo/pseuds/Oyyo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>...yet there is method in 't.</p><p>Ruby, Sapphire and Garnet try to process the Gem Cluster.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Though This Be Madness

Ruby is terrified and angry.

How could the Homeworld do _this?_ There was a lot wrong with the Homeworld, but she didn’t expect this. She didn’t expect torture. Who was it who stole the shards from beneath their noses? Who did this?

(It doesn’t matter.)

Her emotions are the enraged sea, ready to pull someone under and buffeting whatever’s in reach, lashing out with intensity and visible to all.

Sapphire is sad and distressed.

She remembers those gems, remembers teaching them, fighting with them, leading them. Aquamarine thought Garnet’s gloves were cool, and she emulated them. As Garnet, they helped plan battles, and saved some with their future vision.

(Not in the long run.)

Her emotions are the wind, dismissed as unimportant until the very end, where they wreak destruction and havoc.

Garnet is disgusted and horrified.

They--these--this is _bad wrong awful_ and they weren’t asked. She remembers looking over that one’s fusion attempts--she was never very good at it, and that was okay, because while Garnet loved fusion, not everyone had to and not everyone needed to do it. Every gem was useful. Every single one. Now they’re forced together.

(How they must have suffered.)

Her emotions are the turbulent tide underneath the wind and the waves, sweeping all of them along. Recognizable, but too fierce to fight. If not for Steven, she doesn’t know how far out she would be--

\--if they would be unfused by now.

The… they are not violent, or perhaps cannot be violent now. None of the voices in the too-small head know right now.

Ruby deals with problems by fighting until they aren’t problems or breaking down. It’s not good. Ruby wants to take the beast apart, and smash the gems because _it’s not worth it. They were dead--they are dead, just put them out of their misery!_

Sapphire doesn’t know how to deal with this. She distances herself, and wonders if they can make contact. If the gem shards will understand communication attempts, and she wonders how long they’ve been here. How much practice the homeworld gems have had--something like this needs repetition, and the body parts around them…

All three of them come to a realization, and Garnet tears the cluster’s body apart.

(Their eyes are blank, but they follow movement, and Garnet thinks they can feel pain)

Garnet bubbles the gem, and there are voices that are not her own, but all her own.

_So this is what Homeworld thinks of fusion!_

_We couldn’t have known they would do this…_

_So this is where they’ve been! All the ones we couldn’t find! They’ve been here the whole time!_

_Rose couldn’t have known._ This must have happened after the kindergarten was taken down!

_This is punishment for the rebellion!_

_It’s not our fault!_

_“Garnet!”_

Garnet turns toward Steven, shaken. She feels unsteady, like she’s about to fall apart at any moment. Different details of Steven keep coming into focus.

“Yo--we’re back.”

Ruby shoves the glasses into place, not wanting Pearl and Amethyst to see her as weak. Sapphire thought she was over that, _they’re our closest friends, Ruby! And Steven just saw us--_ and Garnet thinks she’s going to defuse right there.

Pearl talks. Garnet clings to her voice, and doesn’t process any of the content. Sapphire files the information for later, and Ruby seethes.

“Uh--what are these?”

“Put them down!” It’s all of them, but not together. Sapphire’s worried they’re going to damage the shards, Ruby’s just upset, and Garnet doesn’t want Pearl to touch _that._

“We need to poof and bubble _all of them._ We can’t let any escape.”

Garnet brings her fist down onto the horror shuddering at her feet. That, at least, is something they agree on.

 

That evening, when Steven is asleep, Garnet steps outside and buries her face into her hands. She doesn’t cry, but she’s more exhausted than she has been in a long time.

The ocean beats against her feet, and she remembers how she used to take walks with Rose and Pearl and Amethyst down this shore, once or twice even Greg. It was a calming experience. Even when attacks happened, when old, twisted friends tried to tear them to bits, Garnet found the ocean noise soothing when it was calm. Not intensely, but it was enough to settle her.

But now it makes her feel sick. A horrible fusion is down there, in total control of the ocean, and but for Steven it would have attacked by now. That’s not the only problem, though--before, Garnet felt that Lapis Lazuli had accepted her fate, that it was a horrible match, but they both chose to go through with it. Now, after staring the cluster in the face, Garnet has more empathy for Lapis Lazuli. Lapis wouldn’t have expected help from the Crystal Gems if Jasper crushed her gem. It was a choice between death by Jasper or a fusion with her. 

And what kind of choice is that?

Garnet promises--silently, but to Ruby and Sapphire and Steven and Lapis Lazuli and even to the cluster--to double her efforts to find Malachite, and to bring them down.

“Garnet?” It’s Pearl. Garnet doesn’t turn around, but she more-or-less knows how far away Pearl is.She also knows that Pearl might touch her shoulder, might leave, might fuss over Garnet, or might just stand silently by her.

Pearl touches Garnet’s shoulder.

Garnet debriefed them once Steven was out of earshot. Told them what they had discovered. Amethyst’s eyes had grown round, but like Steven, she didn’t understand the full implications. She didn’t know the attitudes towards fusing, she didn’t know those crystal gems, and how it all tied together.

Pearl did.

“Are you okay?”

Garnet takes a deep breath. Takes another. Inclines her head, but it’s not a nod.

“Pearl, the last time I defused over emotions was right after the war. When the Corruption took the Crystal Gem Army.” And some remaining Homeworld troops that Garnet was sure the returning ships hadn’t told the Diamond Authorities about. It had been--shocking. There was a wave of light, and Rose barely had time to get Garnet and Pearl under her bubble before _every other Gem_ retreated into their stone.

A blast had scattered them far, far, far.

Garnet had held it together as the first gem reformed as a monster. Then, once they had forced it into retreat, she had a vision.

No matter what future, every gem in the explosion was corrupted for as long as Garnet could see.

She’d split apart as Ruby broke away from Sapphire, and Sapphire let them fall apart as each mourned for their friends in their own way.

It never stopped Rose from trying what she could to rescue them.

“But now, I’ve almost come apart twice in a month.”

Pearl’s hand squeezes Garnet’s shoulder. Garnet sighs, breath shuddering against each gemstone.

“Garnet? Do you...want to fuse with me for a little while?” Their fusion is a fussy thing with infinite patience.

Garnet turns around and looks at Pearl, letting her glasses disappear. “What I need… is Sugilite.”

She smiles as Pearl _pales_ and actually laughs when Pearl starts stuttering out an I suppose…

(That must say a lot about how bad Garnet looks.)

Garnet takes one of Pearl’s hands and presses it to her lips. “I need to be myself, Pearl. But we can go for a walk.”

Pearl smiles in relief, and they go for a walk.

**Author's Note:**

> This was my written reaction to Keeping It Together, all written in one night. All-around, I'm pretty happy with it! The title is such because I'm a Shakespeare nerd, and I really wish Rose Quartz would have gone to see some Shakespeare plays at some point.


End file.
